Lead Developer

Justice Digital; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 59,000 - 73,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

28.97% Civil Service Pension

25 days annual leave

Hybrid working

£1k personal development budget

Job summary

Justice Digital, Data and Science is seeking a Lead Developer to lead software development teams within the Legal Aid Agency Digital domain. The role requires passing Security Check clearance and aligns with the Lead Developer framework.

Heavily focused on building user-centered services using modern tooling in a collaborative, agile environment. The position offers hybrid working options across fixed locations and remote days, with a focus on delivering high quality, maintainable software and

Qualifications

• Experience making and guiding complex technical decisions and contributing to technical strategy.
• Experience nurturing a culture of good software practice that makes change easy.
• Experience delivering value sooner and safer through agile methods and DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Inspire, mentor, coach, manage and lead Software Developers within a business domain.
• Lead discussions to nurture consensus on technical and team decisions.
• Support backlog refinement and plan actionable tasks for the team.

Skills

Technical leadership

People management

DevOps

Agile

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

GitHub Actions

Job description

Lead Developer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 30th October 2026

Interviews: w/c 16th November 2026

Grade: Grade 7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary**: London: £63,343 - £78,225 (which may include an allowance up to £14,882)

National: £58,511 - £73,450 (which may include an allowance up to £14,939)

Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of vacancies: 4

Vacancy number: 23278

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.

The Role

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. Please click on the link for details.

We’re recruiting for Lead Software Developers here at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative Legal Aid Agency (LAA) Digital team.

This role aligns against Lead Developer from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

We really want to hear from people who value making a difference and building user‑centred services using modern tools and practices as part of a highly collaborative team. We strongly encourage empathetic approaches and cross functional working and are looking for people to help build on this culture of agility and openness.

As an example, you could be helping teams that are:

• Building services to enhance an application for legal aid
• Developing services to process and review applications for legal aid caseworkers
• Providing access to court data
• Building services to provide access to historic applications

You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:

• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.

• Employees are allocated 10% of their working time for personal and professional development.
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best-in-class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e‑learning platforms.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!

You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.

Key Responsibilities:

In addition to hands‑on development, you will inspire, mentor, coach, manage and lead Software Developers within a business domain. You will focus on generating a culture of quality, maintaining balance between building sustainable well architected products and unlocking citizen value early.

The areas of your responsibility for leadership will shift between people, architecture, development and product strategy, depending on context and need.

You will have responsibility for one team, or two small related teams, and report to the Principal Developers.

Technical Leadership:

• Collaborate with Technical Architects and Product Managers to set product direction
• Collaborate with Technical Architects to help in the design of systems and implementation of coherent and sustainable technical roadmaps
• Lead discussions with Developers to nurture consensus on technical/team decisions
• Support backlog refinement, helping plan, define and prioritise actionable tasks for the team
• Build inclusivity and understanding by promoting strategies to share technical knowledge of our systems with appropriate documentation and other activities
• Support Delivery Managers in unblocking value where necessary and/or honest representations of effort in an agile environment as the teams learn more

Engineering Management:

• Managing, coaching and growing people with a focus on their wellbeing and development
• Support Delivery Managers in improving team maturity

Engineering Profession:

• Work with your local Principal Developers and the wider community to improve and maintain good coding standards and practices
• Help provide feedback on wider technical strategy of your business unit
• Share knowledge and build enthusiasm for sharing via activities like brown bags, cooperative workshops, chat discussions and other means
• Encourage open discussion and drive communities in our primary communication tools
• Have a mindset for growth and learning, looking for emerging technologies, tools and good practice
• Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance
• Take part in the recruitment and onboarding of other Developers

Our Tech Stack

We rely on Java, Python or Ruby to write our application code, GitHub Actions for CI/CD, Sentry for application monitoring, Kubernetes and Docker to schedule and run our services (read about our Cloud Platform), AWS for most of our infrastructure, GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces and use MacBook Pros.

For front‑end development, we value a robust understanding of the underlying web technologies. We value well‑maintained, open‑source tools that can be used to produce semantic HTML, performant CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript with Express.js and TypeScript, and we assess all our services against accessibility criteria.

We’re happy to help you learn our tech stack once you’re part of our team, and do not require an exact match in your experience of languages. Check out GitHub for a closer look at the technologies we use, and a complete list of services that we build and maintain. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development.

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Person Specification

Essential

• You have experience making and guiding complex technical decisions and contributing to technical strategy.
• You have experience nurturing a culture of good software practice that makes change easy.
• You have contributed towards building a high performing, inclusive team culture.
• You have experience in delivering value sooner and safer, through DevOps, XP or other ways of working that lead to agility and collaboration.
• You have experience either coaching or managing other people.
• You have been involved in building or contributing to a community of practice.
• Contribution towards the team e.g. being point of contact or team advocate, working with stakeholders, helping with Delivery Manager and Product Manager DM/PM activities, improving processes.
• Contribution towards other developers: e.g. coaching / training / inspiring; encouraging L&D.

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. Find out more about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Salary Information**

Base salary for this role is from £63,343 – £70,725 (London), or £58,511 – £65,329 (National)

• New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
• Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
• Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
• Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £14,882 per year (London) or £14,939 (National). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.

The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact [e-mail]